First in Your Heart
by Silva Bramley
Summary: What happened to Grindelwald after young Ariana's death and what did he do up until his well-known defeat at Dumbledore's hands? He continued chasing after the Hallows... GrindelwaldxOC
1. Perched in a Window

With a small popping noise, a young man appeared at the base of a great oak. He lowered his wand, but didn't put it away as he leaned against the tree and looked up at the cozy little house down the hill. All the lights were out except in the very right window.

The young man set down the path, still holding his wand warily at his side, with a wide smile. As he reached the front yard of the house, he contemplated knocking on the door, but thought better of it and with a wave of his wand and a muttered '_Ascendio_', he floated to the sill of the very right window.

The window was open to catch the summer breeze, so he was able to peer into the lit room. Inside was a young lady, who seemed to be around the age of seventeen, sitting at a vanity brushing her hair. The young man on the window watched her for a few moments, watching her and observing. She was just like he remembered, fragile-looking with yellowish blonde hair that hung down to her lower back.

"Ellie," the young man said, smiling broadly at her as her eyes traveled up to look at him in the mirror. She turned to look at him in the window, her bright blue eyes widened in shock.

"Gellert? Why are you here?" She was standing now, one hand braced on the vanity and the other searching for her wand, but it dropped to her side once she realized that her night gown had no pockets.

"Well, I'm here to see you, isn't that obvious?" the young man, or Gellert, answered. Ellie's eye's narrowed, as if she didn't believe him. She walked over to her bed, careful not to lose sight of Gellert, and picked up her wand from the nightstand beside it. Gellert could tell that she felt more comfortable with it in her hand.

"Why would you come to visit me when you didn't write to me the entire time you were gone?" Ellie demanded, pointing her wand at his chest. With a hurt look she added, "You missed my birthday."

"Ellie, I'm sorry," Gellert said. He slipped down from the window sill and into the room. Ellie took a step back, her wand still pointed at his chest. "I've been busy. I haven't had the chance."

"Too busy to write a letter? You didn't respond to any of my letters!" Ellie said, her voice quavering as she tried to keep her voice down. She didn't want to wake her family.

"Does it make you feel better to know that I came to visit you before anyone else?" Gellert said, trying to make amends. Ellie glared at him for a long moment, and then lowered her wand. It seemed that it did make her feel a little better.

"What have you been doing that's kept you so busy?" Ellie asked, still looking upset. "It wasn't more 'experiments', was it?"

"No," Gellert said as he moved to sit on her bed. She didn't move, her wand still clenched tightly in her hand as she watched him from behind the nightstand. "It's something more complex and ideal. So much more important. Something worthwhile that will change our world for the _better_."

"What are you talking about, Gellert?" Ellie questioned. Gellert leapt up from the bed and took her shoulders in his hands. He was nearly a head taller than her, so she had to look up to see his face.

"While I was gone, I was busy researching. What I've found is more extraordinary than I had first thought. I…," he stopped, remembering that Ellie had not agreed with his experiments. She wasn't so accepting of anything that was related to the dark arts or injured anyone else in the slightest. No, he'd wait until she wasn't angry with him, when she had forgiven him. He'd have to warm her up to the idea first. "It's good to see you again."

Ellie seemed confused with the abrupt change in their conversation, but she didn't question him. Instead, she said, "It's good to see you again, too." He looked her over again, taking in her big blue eyes, long blonde hair, and fair skin. It seemed that she was more beautiful than the last time he had seen her. She'd been crying, though, and her eyes had been all puffy.

He released her shoulders and turned away, wondering where she would fit into his future. In his plan for the greater good, there was no spot for his blue-eyed best friend. At least, none that he could see.

"Good night, Ellie," Gellert said, shooting back one last look before jumping out the window. Instead of disapparating, he choose to walk home.


	2. UnForgiving in the Garden

The next morning, as she sat outside in the garden and mulled over Gellert's return, Ellie decided that she was embarrassed and would not forgive Gellert as easily as he hoped. Was he really that stupid, just assuming that she'd forgive him if he smiled at her and visited her before he visited anyone else?

Maybe the experiments he'd done, getting expelled, and leaving her behind after she'd confessed that she might like him as more than a friend didn't seem like a big deal to him, but it certainly was a big deal to her. She wasn't going to allow herself to be degraded or to let him lower her morals just because he smiled at her.

To make matters even worse, he was hiding something from her. Last night, when he told her about what he'd been researching, his whole face had lit up and his eyes had been intense with passion, but instead of telling her what it was that he had been researching, he quickly changed the subject. The only reasons Ellie could think of that he wouldn't tell her were either he didn't trust her or he was dabbling into dark magic again. Or both.

Next time she saw that good-for-nothing-friend-ditching-jerk-face she would give him a piece of her mind. Ellie was envisioning just what she would do to him, when, speak of the devil, Gellert plopped down on the garden bench beside her.

But, instead of doing all the things she envisioned, she just crossed her arms and looked away, refusing to look at him with his _stupid_ curly blonde hair and _stupid_ brown eyes. Ellie saw him cock an eyebrow out of the corner of her eye, but she refused to acknowledge him in any manner, choosing to give him the cold shoulder.

"Are you still angry that I didn't write you back?" Gellert asked with a heavy sigh. Anger flared up inside of her and seemed to spread quickly through her whole body, making her fingers tingle and her face hot. How dare he act like she was being impossible when he simply disregarded her confession as if it was nothing important!

"Yes, I'm still angry! But that's not the only reason I'm angry. If it were only that, I would have forgiven you already!" Ellie raged. Gellert just watched her as if he wasn't sure how to handle this. Of course, he probably thought that everything had been patched up last night.

"What else have I done to make you angry?" Gellert asked with an expression that suggested he couldn't imagine himself doing anything to anger her. Ellie turned to face him, jabbing him in the chest with an accusing finger.

"You come back and try to act like you didn't run off for a whole year, leaving me behind with no explanation! I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again!" Ellie said, punctuating some of the words with a jab of her finger. "To make it even worse, you're hiding something from me!"

Gellert's face softened as she attempted to hide her tears, embarrassed that her emotions had reduced her to crying. No matter how hard she tried to control herself, whenever she got angry, she ended up crying.

"I'm so embarrassed, Gellert. You don't trust me, even after I trusted you enough t-to tell you how I felt," her voice unsteady now that it was tear-choked.

"I trust you," Gellert assured her as he patted her hand. "I trust you more than anyone."

"If you trust me so much, then how come you can't tell me? Is that why you didn't write to me?" Ellie demanded, not assured in the slightest.

"I didn't tell you because I thought it would just make you angrier, and I wanted you to forgive me before I told you. As for not writing you, I told you it was because I was busy," Gellert explained. Ellie searched his face, trying to determine if she should press him for the answer or let it go for now. She decided that she wouldn't be able to relax until she knew.

"If you can trust me, then tell me," Ellie said, trying to speak calmly. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, hoping that her eyes weren't already puffy.

"I've been researching the Hallows," Gellert said, the excited gleam from last night back in his expression.

"The Hallows?" Ellie repeated. Gellert looked at her like she was crazy, not knowing what the Hallows were.

"You know, from the Tale of the Three Brothers?" He asked. He was positively radiating with excitement, but Ellie wondered what the Tale of Three Brothers had to do with anything. It was just an old story that parents told their kids to remind them to think things through before making decisions and that power wasn't everything.

"What about it?" Ellie asked, not sure where he was going with this.

"The Invisibility Cloak, the Elder Wand, and the Resurrection Stone! Those are the Hallows. I have been researching and I found out that the three brothers were real and that they were the Peverell Brothers. I found one of their gravestones in Godric's Hollow," Gellert told her.

"But, they can't be real. How could the Resurrection Stone exist? It's not possible. Someone would have found them by now," Ellie argued. Gellert shook his head vigorously.

"But it is possible! Ellie, if you came into possession of one of the treasures would you brag about it? I mean, look at the Elder Wand. The brother blabbed about it and was murdered!" He said.

"Why would that make me angry?" Ellie asked. Proving, or at least thinking, a children's story was real wasn't something that would make Ellie angry. So there had to be more to it, otherwise Gellert wouldn't have been so hesitant to tell her.

"I think I know who has the Elder Wand," Gellert said with a huge grin. That grin of his was so endearing that Ellie nearly forgot her anger, but she caught herself in time to stop her from forgiving him prematurely. If she just forgave him, then he would end up hurting her again later on without thinking twice.

"Who has it?" Ellie asked, mostly to humor him, because she knew he wanted her to ask him that. Her backyard darkened briefly as a cloud drifted across the sky and momentarily blocked out the sun.

"Gregorovitch," Gellert answered. At the name of the famous wand maker, she pulled out her own wand and looked at it. Gregorovitch had made her wand, as well as Gellert's.

"Gregorovitch, the wand maker?" Ellie asked, not really believing it. The Hallows were a silly story, nothing more. It was almost comical that genius Gellert was all caught up with it.

"That's the one! There's been rumors that he has the elder wand, and I've received a letter from a reliable source that they've seen him with it," Gellert said. Ellie traced her finger up the side of the wand and tried to wrap her mind around the Hallows being real. It was a scary thing to think about.

"You're going to kill him?" Ellie said, continuing to focus on her wand. Gellert placed his hand over hers on the wand, effectively stopping it's movement, and she looked up at him.

"I'm not going to kill him, Ellie. Just because the history of the wand is bloody doesn't mean I have to obtain the wand by killing him," he said, looking her in the eyes with such an intense expression that Ellie found it hard to keep the eye contact.

"Then how are you going to get it?" she asked, her hand still under his bigger, warmer one.

"I'm going to steal it."

---

It was an hour or so after his talk with Ellie and Gellert was leaning against a white picket fence still thinking about what had been said. He had told her about the elder wand and his plans for stealing it and she wasn't angry at him for that. But, he still hadn't told her about what he intended to do once he had possession of the elder wand. That, he knew, would make her angry or at least upset.

He pushed away these thoughts when he spotted the reason he was leaning against a white picket fence, a young man with messy brown hair, strolling up the street. When the brunette recognized Gellert, his face broke out in a smile and he hurried his pace.

"Gellert, what're you doing back here?" he asked. Gellert ran a hand through his curly blonde hair and smiled mischievously.

"I'm here to invite you along on an adventure, Demitir," Gellert said. Demitir unlatched the gate and motioned for Gellert to follow him up to his house. Demitir lead him to the pale yellow sitting room before leaving with the promise of 'some tea his Mother had fixed not too long ago'.

So, as he waited for the return of one of his closest friends and devoted follower during the 'experiments' he had conducted, he allowed his eyes and thoughts to wander. The last time he'd been in this room was the last day of summer before he'd been expelled. They had been celebrating Ellie's birthday.

Demitir interrupted his thoughts once again, returning with a tray holding tea and a rather large pile of sweets and biscuits. When he saw Gellert looking at the food he apologized, "Sorry, my Mother caught me in the kitchen and insisted." He then set the tray down and settled into the chair opposite Gellert. "So, what type of adventure are we talking about?"

"The type of adventure that ends with us possessing the Elder Wand," Gellert answered, using the term 'us' quite liberally. Of course the Elder Wand could only have one master, but the purposes that it would be used for would be beneficial for the both of them.

"You've found it?" Demitir asked, his teacup paused midway to his mouth in his astonishment. It had been hard pressed for them to find more information beyond the stories of the Hallows, and it was hard to believe that Gellert had found the wand already. "Where?"

"I have it from a very reliable source the wand maker Gregorovitch has it," Gellert said. Demitir grinned excitedly and Gellert was sure that his face held a similar expression.

"Have you told Ellie about it?" Demitir asked. For a second, Gellert's smile faltered. It would be so much easier if he didn't have to deal with Ellie. Having to worry about what Ellie thought really weighed him down. But, he knew he wouldn't be able to keep her out of his life. They had been best friends since they were old enough to walk.

"Yes, I have," Gellert answered before taking a big bite from a biscuit.

"And how did she react?" Demitir asked, though - judging by his expression - he already had an idea of how she reacted.

"She was angry," Gellert said. "And she cried."

"Oho! Our Ellie, always the dramatic one," Demitir chuckled. Gellert laughed half-heartedly, wanting to bring the conversation back to the Elder Wand. In the absence of Dumbledore, he wanted someone to share his excitement with, and Demitir, like Ellie, was one of his closest friends. Demitir seemed to sense that he wanted to talk about the Elder Wand some more, because he said, "So, what's the plan?"

"We need to get the Elder Wand, but I have to take ownership of it properly," Gellert said, leaning forward in his seat. "Which will be difficult, since it's, after all, an unbeatable wand."


	3. Changes and the Same

Ellie didn't know how long she sat outside, hiding behind the old, big tree in the front yard of Demitir's house, but it'd been a long time and her legs were starting to go numb. She had been passing Demitir's house, on her way to visit her Aunt's house, and had seen Gellert and Demitir disappearing inside.

On a whim, she decided to wait and ambush Gellert once he came out. But, it didn't look like he was ever going to come out. It was getting dark out. Her Mother must be worried. Ellie put a hand on the tree trunk, ready to push herself up, when the front door swung open and Gellert's voice carried from the porch.

"I'll be seeing you, Demitir," Gellert said as he stepped onto the stone path and made his way down to the side walk. Ellie felt ridiculous as she lurked in the shadows behind him, waiting for him to get out of sight of Demitir's house.

She followed him as silently as she could until he turned at an intersection. Jumping at the chance, she grabbed the back of his shirt, whirled him around, and stuck her wand in his face so that it was very nearly touching his nose.

Gellert seemed surprised to find himself pressed up against the wall by one of his best friends, and a girl at that. But, he didn't say anything, just satisfied with raising his brows questionably at her. Ellie found it hard to suppress the anger that flared inside her chest.

"You've recruited Demitir to help you with your crime?" Ellie demanded, unable to hide the tremor that anger put in her voice.

"Ellie, it's not like I'm committing murder, or -,"

"Or what? Torturing other students?" Ellie asked. In a flurry of anger and movement, Gellert shoved her backwards and pulled his own wand out to point at her. His sudden action caught her off guard and she fell hard on her backside.

"You sound like a broken record! Have you anything else to say or are you that empty minded that you can only have one thought?!" Gellert hissed at her, his chest heaving in his anger. Ellie stared up at him, her mouth gaping wide and her expression caught somewhere in the grey between offence and hurt.

She got up to her feet and opened her mouth and closed it, as if she was going to say something, but thought better of it. When Gellert didn't move, he seemed frozen in place, his wand still pointed at her, Ellie turned on her heel and ran away from him, and up the street.

In Gellert's mind, he was seeing Ariana's death. He'd almost done the same again, almost harmed someone who was innocent. Someone so much purer than himself.

It wasn't for several moments that he realized that he was still standing with his wand pointed at where Ellie had been. Shaking his head he put his wand away and trudged away in the direction his house.

---

Ellie didn't stop running until she was on the other side of the door. She fell back onto it, depending on the door to support her as she struggled to catch her breath and sort out her raging emotions.

It wasn't until her breathing slowed considerably that Ellie pulled herself up and went up the stairs to her room. She shut the door behind her and stood motionless in the door way. Her room looked as it had the day she left for her first day at Durmstrang. The same dark blue sheets and comforter, the same dark wooden headboard. The same rickty night table. The same vanity and the same trunk at the foot of her bed. The same, worn carpet. How could it be the same, so exactly normal and usual, when everything else around her was changing?

An uncontrollable anger welled up inside of her, and she lunged forward, practically spitting and hissing, wanting the sameness to go away. She tore the comforter from her bed and threw it out the window. Wheeling around she grabbed the nightstand and hurled it at the vanity, the glass tinkling beautifully as the mirror shattered. Feathers fluttered around her when she turned her attack on her soft, blue pillows. The destruction continued until she pulled open her chest and on the very top was a photograph of Gellert, Demitir and herself. Ellie gently took the photograph into her hands.

She was in the middle of the picture, Demitir and Gellert hugging her from either side and they were smiling widely, their mouths moving to form silent and forgotten jokes and comments. She recognized it as the picture they took just after Christmas break, and just before Gellert was expelled.

She set it back in the trunk and gently shut the lid, contradicting her earlier actions. She leaned directly back, laying on the floor beside her trunk and her upturned mattress, covering up with the sheets from her bed.

---

"Ellie?"

With great difficulty, Ellie extracted herself from sleep and looked at Demitir with bleary eyes.

"What happened to your room?" Ellie sat up and felt the after effects of sleeping on the floor in her joints and muscles. She looked around at her room, and saw that it looked much worse in the day light.

"I don't want to talk about it," She answered, looking back at Demitir. He was holding her blanket, which he must have retrieved from the front lawn, and an envelope. "What's that?"

"A letter your Mother left for you last night," Demitir said as he crossed the room and handed the envelope to her. "My own Mother sent me over to ask your family to dinner. I swear, she's so old fashioned. Doesn't think an owl is personal enough."

Ellie opened the envelope and unfolded the parchment that was inside.

_Ellesmera,_

_Sorry to leave without you, Darling, but you were still at your Aunt's and we are to use a portkey. Poor Gram isn't doing so well, and her sight is going. We're hoping to get things figured out while we're there, and she might come back to live with us. I know she doesn't want to leave her beloved village, but hopefully we'll manage to convince her to come back with us._

_Would you be willing to set up the guest room for her? We shouldn't be gone for too long, hopefully we'll be bringing back Gram by the weekend. She'll be eager to have some company. She does love to tell stories. Surely she'll want to tell you all about how the famous wandmaker Gregorovitch moved in next door._

_Anyway, the portkey should be activated any second now, so I best close this letter._

_Mom_

"Gellert would be interested about how your Grandma lives next door to Gregorovitch," said Demitir after she finished reading the letter.

"You read it?"

"Of course I did. What'd you expect me to do? You know me better than that," Demitir said, squeezing her shoulder affectionately.

"Well, I could care less about Gellert at present. So, unless you want to experience a very painful death, you will tell him nothing about my Grandma," Ellie said, crumpling the letter in her hand.

"You think you could take me? I bet you wouldn't even have time to lift your wand, before I disarmed you," Demitir taunted in his playful manner. Ellie scowled.

"Can't you ever be serious? I'm trying to open your eyes to how Gellert is taking advantage of us. We're nothing more to him then all the other people he uses!"

"Not true, Ellie!" Demitir exclaimed, looking at her as if she'd lost her mind.

"Explain to me, then, how it isn't true!" Ellie shouted at Demitir, hating him for his blind trust.

"Gellert has been our best friend since before we could talk! We're practically family!" Demitir answered defensively. Ellie chucked a piece of the broken nightstand at his head, but he stepped to the side and avoided it altogether.

"Oh, that's fine proof. Let us not forget that he uses his family on a regular basis! He only went to Godric's Hollow to find out more about some stupid child's tale!"

"Is that what this is about? You're still upset that Gellert left you behind without any explanation?" Demitir moved closer and patted her on the head in a condescending manner. "Ellie, dear, you are much too dramatic for your own good."

"Get out of my house."

"Ellie-"

"Go." The tears were already starting to come. She hid her face so he couldn't see them.

Demitir stared at her for a few long moments, as if he wasn't sure he should leave her alone in her anger and near-hysteria. Pulling his wand out of his pocket he pointed it at the vanity and then at the nightstand, saying, "_Reparo_". He picked up her sheets and blanket and made her bed again and did his best to gather up all the feathers and fix her pillows.

Ellie didn't fight him when he picked her up and put her in the bed.

---

"Ellie's really unstable," Demitir said. Gellert looked down from where he was sitting in the tree. With a sigh he pushed his bangs out of his eyes and hopped down.

"I know. I don't know how to handle her anymore," Gellert said as he looked down at the town at the bottom of hill. "She won't stop going on and on about my expulsion."

"I know," Demitir said. There was a brief silence as Demitir put his hands in his pockets and they both looked around. Demitir was the one to break it, "Gregorovitch just moved next door to Ellie's Grandma."

This caught Gellert's attention and his expression brightened considerably.

"That certainly changes things."


End file.
